Submitted by Bornbhthegods t3_yd3o18 in springfieldMO
I am looking to move to Springfield next year. Where should I look to move and is there any accounting (auditing and taxes) opportunities? Also looking for a great sports place for sports betting to hang out
> Drive like everyone will hit you. Why? Because they will. Red lights have little meaning down here.
No, no they will not. If you have ever driven in LA, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, the driving here is tame and people are amenable mostly.
People will run yellow lights but that's true basically anywhere.
I've lived here 17 years now and Springfieldians have this weird complex that they have the worst drivers in the world. You don't. Not by a huge margin. Springfield drivers are basic small city drivers. Some are dicks, most aren't. The biggest issue with traffic is almost always either college students because young people drive more erratically or people just being assholes.
Shit, drive around Columbia for a day. Springfield is a basic grid. Columbia isn't.
My biggest problem with Springfield drivers is that they all seem oblivious to all the other cars on the road. They don't drive like jerks like in some cities. They just drive like Mr Magoo.
I dont have a complete compendium when it comes to cities all over the US, but I have been to St Louis a lot, lived near KC and was there a lot, been to Tulsa more times that I can count, Columbia on a few occasions been to Oklahoma City a few times, Dallas and Houston a couple times each, stayed in San Diego for a couple weeks and drove myself everywhere. Hell, I got a week long resort stay in Cancun a few years ago and while the transport driver was terrifying as well as everyone else on the road, there wasnt a single accident on my way too and from.
I have friends who have been to San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and New York a few times. Some friends have been to Florida for spring break.
The concensus that we have all come to is that the Springfield area has some of the most idiotic and dangerous drivers we've ever experience. Ive only lived here for a few years and every single accident Ive been in has been because of some idiot driver not paying attention or blowing a red light. Five accidents in five years here. Literally none were my fault because i was following the rules of the road. Almost daily I have a near miss on my drive to or from work, I have had people try to run me off the road because im not going fast enough while im already doing 20 over the limit and I dont camp the left lane.
Cities MIGHT have worse drivers sometimes, but theyre usually too gridlocked to allow for it. Here, the idiots have room to breathe and be idiots, so the rest of us get punished for it. Even the amount of times ive been where ive mentioned, i havent had nearly the amount of near misses i experience in 1-2 days here.
> Five accidents in five years here. Literally none were my fault because i was following the rules of the road. Almost daily I have a near miss on my drive to or from work, I have had people try to run me off the road because im not going fast enough while im already doing 20 over the limit and I dont camp the left lane.
I'm not trying to dismiss your experience but if you got into 5 accidents in 5 years, you might not have adjusted your driving to the drivers around you.
I moved to Springfield from a small town. I grew into going a good 15-20mph faster on the same sized roads because of flow of traffic my first few years here.
The roads here aren't mega 9 lane behemoths like the I5 can be in spots. If someone is behaving erratically in the lane next to you, pay attention to it. Be more defensive.
I've driven around Springfield a lot and had 1 accident since 2005 and that was a head on caused by someone losing control in snow. I don't know if you just have bad luck or are just not adjusted to Missouri drivers, but one accident per year might be a you problem.
I've driven from the north side to downtown for work for 5-6 years and after that drove from the north and south side from either Kearney to 65 or Republic to James River to 65 and have never had even a 10th of the issues you claim to have, even in morning or evening rush. Yes, some drivers are distracted or texting or assholes. Yes, you need to pay attention to what the people around you are doing. Yes, there are idiots. There are idiots everywhere. Go look up road rage or driving karma videos on Youtube. There's thousands of them because there are idiot drivers everywhere there are drivers. This is not a unique phenomenon to Springfield MO. None of it.
Not one per year, 2 in one year, 2 in another, 1 last one a year ago. None were my fault.
accident 1. was somebody cutting over and stomping on their brake to cut me off. I braked but their trailer hitch still wrapped my radiator around the engine. Totaled
accident 2. somebody going too fast on wet roads, i was stopped at a stop light. they lost control and skidded into my rear bumper. repaired this one easy enough.
accident 3 a truck lost its brakes on the off ramp at campbell and james river, i had a green light and started going. the only reason they didnt Tbone me is bwcause i was checking the weather or time on my phone when the light changed. They still ran a red light because they couldnt stop, but if i took off as soon as it turned green, i wouldve gotten tboned. Totalled this one too
accident 4 was the same as #2, idiots dont know how to drive in rain around her. didnt even bother repairing this one
accident 5 was somebody trying to merge into my lane without the room to do it. they took the front bumper off my car. Repair it, but sold it later
the only avoidable one by my own standard mightve been accident #1 but i didnt have time to react
some of the earlier ones might have been attributed to not being defensive enough, yet. But thats my point, you shouldnt have to be so overly defensive because of how dangerous the driver are here. You should be able to drive like normal and not have to constantly be a paranoid wreck while driving because of the psychotic idiots who shouldnt have a license. Springfield drivers are dangerous, neglectful, and stupid. They are by far the worst drivers i have ever experience AND THATS THE POINT OF WHAT THE ORIGINAL COMMENT SAID. You have to drive like people constantly blow red lights, which I see once a day. And act like everyone is out to kill you, because they are, maybe negligably, but they are.
> But thats my point, you shouldnt have to be so overly defensive because of how dangerous the driver are here.
And my point is that drivers are like that everywhere.
> drivers are dangerous, neglectful, and stupid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb7O1RSpYl8
This is one youtube channel that features people doing dumb stuff with cars. There's a new video every day. This is just one of these channels. You can find literally thousands of hours of bad drivers with little to no effort.
I promise you most if not all of these drivers have never lived in Springfield.
That's my point and why I called out the post. Springfieldians have this idea that they're the only place in the world to have bad drivers. They are not and they're not exceptionally bad. They're average.
Again, I am not magically lucky, neither is my brother in law who was a mobile x ray tech for a decade and drove all over SW MO or my sister who all live in Springfield. Between us we've had 2 actual accidents in 15 years that weren't a little bump in a right hand lane or something equally as minor. BIL had someone leave their turning lane and enter into his while in his mobile xray van about 3-4 years ago. They were on their phone. Shocking.
No, people don't drive correctly in bad weather. Rain, snow, ice, whatever. Slow down, take more time to start and stop. Again, not a Springfield thing.
I recognize we arent the only people with bad drivers, but in my own anecdotal experience I have had more accidents and near misses in or around springfield than anywhere else in my life on a consistent basis. To me and many others who have travelled or lived elsewhere this is the experience we have had including people who have lived in some of these placest with notoriously bad drivers. Most people I know of, have spoken to, or have read about posting on this subreddit have all essentially agreed we have some of the worst drivers in the US. But everytime we address it on here, people come out of the woodwork to minimize us and say "its not THAT bad." We have bad drivers, we have exceptionally dumb, ignorant drivers. They exist everywhere but in our experience they are especially noticable here. Nobody who speaks to this topic denies that bad drivers exist elsewhere, we just are firm in our personal experiences from several walks of life that we have collectively had terrible experiences with drivers here.
> Most people I know of, have spoken to, or have read about posting on this subreddit have all essentially agreed we have some of the worst drivers in the US
As someone who has spent a lot of time in different states, no, we don't. That's my experience and the experience of most of the people I know in the area long term.
Everyone thinks they have the worst drivers. Everyone. From Atlanta to Portland Maine to small town Idaho.
It's selection bias almost exclusively. You see the bad drivers where you live and work and drive the most. You don't see the bad drivers day in and day out in towns you drive through or visit.
Data reveals something that doesn't match your description.
Missouri isn't even in the top 10 for fatal accidents or accident insurance costs, even adjusted per capita.
https://www.injuryclaimcoach.com/car-accidents-by-state.html
It is not magically worse here than anywhere else in the US. We do not have more bad drivers in our population than other states. None of this is exclusive to Springfield. Literally none of it and saying otherwise is silly. Yes, I minimize because you're not persecuted for living in a small city with small city drivers and traffic.
We do not have exceptionally anything drivers. We just have drivers.
Fine lets just agree to disagree, you have your experience, i have mine. Ive spent 1/6th of my life here and every accident has been here. I havent had the necessity to be a hyper defensive driver until i came here, and the daily near misses do not support any of your points. Thats my experience, as well as many others in this sub, you have yours, but dont minimize it and use the boomer mentality of "ive had it worse"
We could also look at more data.
We are the 3rd largest city in the state. Our fatal accident rate is 1.8% of the fatal crashes that happened in MO for 2016-2018.
KC is #2, their rate is 8.88%.
St Louis is #1, their rate is 6.17%.
Columbia is the next smallest, they're rate is 1.08%.
It seems to me that Springfield is right where they should be. It would be different if we, say, also had 8% of the fatal car crashes. So, just judging by fatal car crashes in Missouri, KC is the most dangerous place to be.
This is obviously incomplete data and I'm not finding any good summarized reports of car accidents by county or city because I don't think that data is tracked unless someone is injured, but I could be wrong.
I'm a millennial and 'I've had it worse' isn't what I'm saying at all. I'm saying Springfield isn't exceptional on traffic and never has been. People just get this mindset of 'oh these terrible drivers here are the worst anywhere' and everywhere thinks that about where they live and it's simply false. It's a cognitive bias.
I've seen my share of bad drivers here too. Of course. They exist everywhere. That is my point and always has been my point. We are not any different than Charlottesville or Memphis or Des Moines or whatever other place you can think of. Giving OP some idea that traffic or drivers are magically worse here than where they're coming from is simply false.
Ive never once thought wherever I lived had the worse drivers, and again I point to the variety of places I have lived and experienced. Hell, at least people use their blinkers typically in St Louis. I have never thought we had the worst drivers until i moved and lived here for an extended period. Your data only accounts for incidents that happened, but nothing to say for the daily occurrences where the rest of us have to read the mind of the many idiot drivers so we arent involved in the wreck ourselves.
Simply put, at this point I truly do not care. There are many people who would agree that the drivers here are the worst theyve experienced, I would agree to that. However you are not doing yourself any favors here. And obviously not changing my nor anyone elses mind. As for the original point of the post and for the initial comment on here. I feel like we can all agree, treating the drivers here like they are dangerous idiots is for the better. The faster that new implants here learn to be hyper defensive, the better.
I love CoMo a lot
Buy yeah Theyre city planning sucks
Yeah, I haven't been in Columbia in like a decade until this year and I realized just how spoiled I got from Springfield's basic grid.
Their city planning over decades has created a really kinda bad road layout.
I think what gets to me about Springfield driving, having driven in some of those places you mentioned and having grown up in a place with wild traffic and humans, is the dichotomy between people who drive like it is the third largest city in the state and remarkably dense by mid sized city standards and those who drive like it's a little country town and they want to take as much time as possible because only taking short trips will cause engine condensation if you never get it up to running temp. I do better with the one note hurried aggression of more self actualized cities. There are several areas and ways in which I would like Springfield more if it embraced being the city it is.
This is fair and I can't argue that. As someone who has adjusted over a decade ago, I completely get the annoyance of 'small town' or 'out of town' drivers.
They don't keep up with the flow of traffic, they don't know where they're going and Bass Pro area is rife with drivers like this at certain times of year.
I get it, tourism and all of that, but yeah, I know and feel the same. You're on an artery road even if it's just 5 lanes, if the speed limit is 40, you should be running 45 minimum. Running 40(or slower) just slows down traffic.
You're not in your small town of 20k or whatever. The speed limit is not 35mph. Go.
This is why when I'm in a place I'm not familiar with, my primary focus is flow of traffic. If everyone is going X speed, go X speed. I don't care what the sign says. That is a distinctly urban traffic phenomenon and something some visitors here simply do not understand.
We have several public accounting firms, the largest two being Forvis (previously BKD) which is national, and KPM which is a regional firm. Then we have several smaller firms but the above two are the only ones large enough where you can specialize strictly in audit. I know people at both firms so feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
Thank you! I will think of some questions then message you
I work at one of the larger CPA firms in town and may be able to answer some questions as well, if needed.
Bass Pro (fortune#400?) and O’Reilly Auto Parts (fortune#315) are HQ’d in Springfield. Both have a ton of financial positions from clerical/data entry, to processing/leads/auditors, all the way to top financial positions!
Edit: you can email their HR and ask that a recruiter review your resume and chime in on what positions they have posted and not-posted that you should keep an eye out for. A seasoned staffer who specializes in filling positions with your background should be able to answer this 👍🏽 (but HR has had a ton of turnover, so don’t get discouraged if no one answers)
Welcome and our condolences, to Springfield!
I’m from south of chicago. The people are super rude here and everything is so expensive
Oh man, I will say that the traffic situation is way better here. Of course things get congested around rush hour, and Springfield drivers are a different breed of dumb sometimes.. but nothing compared to trying to get in, out of, and through the Chicago area, lol.
I’m surprised about the expensive part 🤔 I’m not a Springfield advocate, I’ve definitely voiced my frustrations with STL, KC, and SGF. But I’m bottom of middle class, I don’t really spend on anything, and I find SGF to be very affordable compared to the rest of the state/country. Same amenities as STL/KC (except for concerts and pro sport entertainment) for much less cost of living. My coworkers are all super nice, and so are the staff at stores and restaurants. Other than that, I only interact with college friends and people at bars, who are all great as well!
Pretty sure their comment was about Chicago not Springfield.
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sgf is similar to the southern suburbs of chi in many ways. you will likely find it easy to fit in.
My uncle lived in Rockford for 30 years or so any he would come down here for holidays and always loved how friendly everyone was even just in line at a grocery store.
Sorry- sports betting not legal in Missouri
I would recommend Bass Pro, actually. They are always hiring for accountants. They have a great discount on merchandise (50%) and have company events for free several times a year. In the spring, they're opening a clinic for employees and their families. Daycare too.
Wow that is really neat. I am going to look into that!
Just find a place south of sunshine street. North side Springfield is gotten quite bad and it is getting worse.
Is this what we are going to do today? Just argue about how scary it is north of Sunshine, you do understand some of the most affluent neighborhoods in Springfield are north of it right?
Of course, I don't mean to blanket the entire quadrant of the city. But it is just simpler to non natives to recommend the south side over the north. There is A LOT of hidden gems on the north side.
Lol
Hello! I am a CPA local to Springfield. I have worked in public and industry. I currently work remote--but there's several options for both public and industry depending on your preference. I currently live (moving soon) in the Oak Grove neighborhood and it's wonderful. Not as expensive as Southern Hills but still nice. Best of luck!
Edit: Feel free to message me for more info, but I have worked at 2 of the largest businesses in town as a CPA. I can provide nice deets.
Well, Jack Henry is the biggest one I can think of at the moment for accounting and such
Aim for South/Southwest side, we have lots of theft in spfd but the South side is way better. Most of the stuff to do is on the South side as well, excluding downtown and Commercial street
Oooh, Jack Henry is a good one, great insurance benefits too. I do insurance validation at one of the hospitals.
Kansas Crossing closest place with in person sports betting that I'm aware of. It's about an hour and half. Isn't as big or nice as Downstream but not a bad casino
Move to the south side; or nixa and republic are good value for living right outside the metro area
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Several big accounting firms and companies that you could try including O'Reilly corporate where I work. Good choice if you plan to stick with them
Just do yourself a favor and move anywhere other than Springfield.
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Thats what i'm saying where i live lol
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FORVIS! 8th largest public accounting firm in the U.S.
If you "ignore the north side" like all these terrified south siders suggest, you'll miss the only culture this godforsaken town has to offer in downtown and on Commercial Street, as well as a few of the best neighborhoods in town in Phelps Grove, Rountree and parts of West Central just North of Drury.
You said you're from Chicago. Our north side is going to feel like Mayberry to you. I live directly in one of those "bad" neighborhoods everybody is so scared of and love it. There are places that I wouldn't live, but there's basically nowhere I wouldn't walk. Granted, I'm a big white dude, so ymmv on the midnight walks.
All that to say, if you want 100 year old craftsman and craftsman-adjacent houses as well as proximity to all of the cool things that happen in town look north of Sunshine, especially in those neighborhoods I already mentioned above. If you want McMansions behind picket fences, and HOA Karens measuring your grass with rulers, check out the south side.
Nah, I've lived here 15 years. You'd do fine to ignore the north side completely - and by that, I mean north of Chestnut. The north side has a reputation because it is factually a more dangerous part of town and objectively is uglier and more run down. Commercial is a little better since they moved The Kitchen, but I've previously had to drive across town to meet my ex after she couldn't leave Lindburg's due to two creepy homeless guys following her outside and catcalling her, so she didn't even feel safe enough to walk to her car.
It's great that you feel content and I am happy for you, but don't downplay the subreddit's concerns at large about the north side as some type of exaggerated pearl clutching. It is what it is.
I've been here since 2007. It's largely pearl clutching. Creepy dudes being creeps exist all over town.
The general consensus of our residents and the subreddit community undoubtedly disagree with you, but you are entitled to your opinion. I mean, are property values higher on the south side or north side? What factors do you think play into south side properties having more value? If you can’t objectively answer that question then you are simply being dishonest.
Are you going to get stabbed, shot, or car jacked on the north side? Probably not, but your chances are certainly higher because of all those factors that play into low property values. Homelessness, crime and drugs, distance from infrastructure, and crumbling infrastructure.
Creepy people do exist all over town. The difference is you don’t see groups of homeless or sketchy people who are obviously tweeking out walking down the sidewalk of republic road on the daily. Go take a peek at the homeless camp behind Creasian on Chestnut.
All of those issues stem from people who live on the south side going "just ignore the north side."
Are there problems up here? Yes. Are they nearly as bad as what the south siders make it out? Not even close. Will they get any better as long as yall have the "just ignore it" attitude? Fuck no.
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Definitely the wrong place to live if you like sports betting. Great place to live if you love sports, however! Like most are saying, avoid the north side. If you’re renting, try to avoid rental companies like TLC and Wooten.
Sports betting will be coming soon to MO, i have been following the bill. it appears your state will be able to vote on it soon i believe. thanks for the rental tip!
Big-Row-7895 t1_itpv3ll wrote
Welcome to Springfield. I would recommend staying away from living in the north side. Real estate prices have been increasing over the last couple years. Though it’s cheaper then most places. If you can buy a house do it. Rents are similar to any major metro of a bigger city. Drive like everyone will hit you. Why? Because they will. Red lights have little meaning down here.